


Saviour

by elfin



Series: Survivor [1]
Category: Brimstone
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 09:40:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12010065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: One escaped soul isn't the same as another.





	Saviour

**Author's Note:**

> (Part 1 of a re-write of my 2001 fics, Breathless / Lancing / Snakes)

'It's better to be my right hand than in my path. Remember that.’

Sitting at the counter in the diner, wanting nothing more than to finish his breakfast in peace, Ezekiel tried to look as if he was thinking about it as he stirred sugar into the jet black coffee. It sort of made sense. ‘What am I supposed to call you?’

The Devil frowned under his wide-brimmed hat. 'Call me?'

'Yeah. You have so many names. Which one do you use in this,’ he swept one hand up and down, indicating the human form the Devil appeared to prefer on Earth, ‘form?’

‘As you say, I have lots of names. I can’t see why you need to call me anything.’ 

Zeke ran the list of names and titles he knew, mostly from school, through his head. ‘Satan’ conjured up vague memories he didn’t dare look at too closely; residual feelings of ecstasy and agony, the half-recalled sounds of screams and groans like the haltingly recalled pieces of a dream. Somehow the white cotton shirt, black jeans and fedora didn't fit. Then again, neither did the silk black floppy hair. He wiped up the last of the yellowy white goo that had once been an egg with the last morsel of cold toast and pushed his plate away.

‘Up here, you don’t look like Satan.'

The devil stared back at him and with a smirk, he suggested, ‘You could try ‘Sir’.’

Zeke snorted and picked up his mug, turning it in his hands so that the handle pointed outwards and his cold fingers could wrap around the cheap ceramic, leaching the warmth from the cooling coffee. Somewhere in the recesses of his brain was the name Abbadon. 

‘It means ‘destruction’.’

He watched the Devil reach for the sugar sprinkler on his left. 

’Kinda fits.’

‘My name, he said somewhat petulantly, ‘is Morning Star.’

It was quite beautiful. He couldn’t use that. ‘Way too much of a mouthful.’ The smirk became a leer. Zeke rolled his eyes and shook his head. ‘Pervert.’  
‘Lucifer.’

Light bringer, if he wasn’t mistaken. How ironic. He shrugged. ’I suppose I could shorten it. How about Luci?’ 

“Ezekiel, may I remind you that I am the ruler of hell, the personification of evil, justice and revenge, the great leveller of those who have and those who have not.’ 

Eyes flashed red Zeke laughed, almost choking on his drink. ‘Fine. Whatever.'

Apparently frustrated by his servant's laid-back attitude, the Devil sat forward. 'Are we taking the day off?’

The detective, ex-detective, graced his co-called boss with a dirty look. 'Don't you have better things to do with your mornings than to watch me eat breakfast?'

The Devil - Lucifer, Zeke settled for despite his reservations - seemed to think that over. 'There are other things I could be doing, I suppose. That's the great thing about eternity, you have all the time in the world.'

'Not a lot of use when you're dead.'

‘I guess not.' He reached back to take the salt shaker from the table behind them and turned it in his fingers. Zeke watched as he held it up, just so, and the bright morning sun streaming in through the windows behind them splintered in the cheap glass. It threw sharp crystals of light over the angular face and long neck. 

Aware that he was maybe staring, Zeke tore his eyes away and fixed them determinedly at the wall above the stove. 

In the bowels of the fiery underworld he commanded, Lucifer caused unimaginable suffering. He presided over eternal damnation; a nightmare there was no waking up from. The only joy in hell was his joy, the only pleasures were his. The only music was the screams of the tortured. And that awful tinny stuff they played in elevators and to people waiting on hold to speak to customer services.

The small annoyances he brought with him when he walked the earth seemed petty by comparison. Zeke couldn’t help but wonder if they really led human beings eventually into his realm, or if that was bullshit and he just liked fucking with people. 

‘I have a confession to make.’ Ezekiel almost spat his coffee out over the counter. ‘Well, if you’re going to be like that…’

Raising a hand, Zeke apologised. ‘But seriously? You have a confession to make? You? Surely you’re the antithesis of confession.’

‘I admit I wouldn’t usually encourage the practice. But in this case… there’s something you should know.’

‘Okay.’

‘After Ash’s little break out, everyone knew the numbers, I had no choice. You had to bring home 113. I had to draw 113 runes on your body in my blood.'

Nodding, and with the patience of a saint, he said, 'I know all this, boss, we've been through it about a thousand times already.'

‘While everyone was busy falling over themselves trying to save their own demonic necks, I held open the back door and let two more out.’

Zeke wasn’t sure he’d heard it right. ‘You let two escape on purpose?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which makes it 115, not 113.’

‘You’ve been tasked with bringing back 113.’

‘Leaving two free.’ He understood then. ‘You let two go. Two immortal souls to forever roam the earth. Why?’ More importantly, ‘Who?’

‘Who isn’t your business and why is less so.’’

‘You said you were confessing.’

‘They’re not what I’m confessing.’

Zeke was lost. ‘So…. why are you telling me?’

‘Because I believe that one of the souls I released in order to let the two go free has surfaced right here in Los Angeles.’

‘Okay. Priority soul. Gotcha.’

Usually sarcasm like that would earn him some petty retribution.

‘I thought they were lawyers…..’

There was something in the his tone rang warning bells in Zeke’s head. ‘I take it they weren’t?’

‘One was. I hope. But not the other.’

‘And what was - is - he?’

‘Older. Much, much older.’ He pushed a folder newspaper under Zeke’s nose from nowhere. The headline was obvious, ‘Two Die In Occult Ritual’.

‘Occult ritual?’ He couldn’t resist a dig. ‘You released one of your own worshippers.’

‘Coincidence.’

‘Narcissist.’

‘He took advantage.’

This time it was a full-on laugh. ‘You’re telling me someone took advantage of the Devil? The ruler of hell, the personification of evil, the great....'

Lucifer kicked his shin hard. 'Thank you. Yes. I was in a hurry.'

Ezekiel chuckled, picking up his drink, expression souring. He hated cold coffee but was still ready to protest when the Devil reached for his mug.

‘Stop whining.’

A single breath later, Lucifer handed it back. Zeke took it, hesitantly. His coffee was hot again, as if it had just been poured. Surprise didn’t come close.

’Thank you.'

The Devil stretched, popping his shoulder joints. 'Be careful with this one. He will know you. He will know how to rid himself of you.'

Zeke eyes his boss with a watchful gaze as he left using the door of the diner before vanishing into thin air from the pavement. 

Something was up. Heating his coffee had been a nice thing to do and never, not once, had he known Lucifer do anything nice. It literally wasn’t in his nature. He looked down at the newspaper headline again, and this time read the article from start to finish.

*

A couple of hours later, Ezekiel had found five witnesses to the two deaths at what all of them swore to him hadn’t really been an occult ritual, just play-acting, pretending! It wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously! Zeke suspected they’d been taking it very seriously right up until the moment the two men had died.

Three out of the five he spoke to told him they thought the shock of the first death had been the direct cause of the second. Both victims were elderly, both in a poor state of health. A friendly coroner confirmed that. Officially, the case would be dead in the water by this time tomorrow.

Yet the Devil hadn't been kidding around. He never joked about this stuff but this time he’d seemed more sincere than Ezekiel had ever known him. So what was he missing? Certainly it wasn’t coincidence, those two men suffering heart attacks so close together, at the same place. At the same ritual.

He stopped on a park bench to try to piece it all together. Less than a minute later, he was no longer alone.

'It's a puzzle, isn't it?'

The Devil's sudden and usually unwelcome visits had ceased to disturb or surprise him. Now and again it was even good to talk with someone who knew what he was. At least he could be himself with Lucifer, didn’t have to come up with cover stories or pretend to know what he was talking about like he did with other people. 

‘Everyone thinks those two men died of natural causes.'

Dark eyes widened. ‘I suppose the question you have to ask yourself is, did the natural causes occur naturally? I mean, that’s the problem with satanism - no one really believes it until they’re looking me in the eyes. And then it’s all screams and denial and pleas for mercy.’

‘Why are you being so helpful this time around?’ But he worked it out before the Devil had time to respond. ‘It’s because this one's on you, isn’t it? It’s your responsibility. Ash didn't instigate this escape; you did, to let the other two remain free. Who were they? What were they? What the hell were they to you?’

That familiar red flash of the devil’s eyes had ceased to bother Zeke a long time ago. It wasn’t a threat, wasn’t even a warning. It was just a flash of emotion he’d been unable to keep hidden, keep buried. Ezekiel was quickly learning that there was more to Lucifer than all that ‘king of hell’ bullshit he fell back on each and every time he was cornered, every time he went on the defensive. The Devil, on the defensive. That just wasn’t right.

‘You started this little confessional. Might as well … go all the way.’

Lucifer didn’t rise to the bait. And that in itself spoke volumes. ‘They were - are, I suppose - killers. Well, one of them is. The other one… I don’t know what he is. They weren’t with me long but for the time they were they showed even me things. Their devotion to one another was unbreakable. What they’d suffered in life was more than I could ever inflict on them in death so I didn’t even try. Instead I listened, for once, and I learnt a thing or two. Their imaginations were unsurpassed, even in my realm. The loved one another unconditionally. There were no limits to their hunger to taste, to feel, to experience everything.’

The park was silence, everything stilled. ‘You fell in love.’

‘I’ve told you before-‘

‘Don’t lie to me. What’s the point? You fell in love, or at least in lust, and when the opportunity arose to give them their freedom you took it. Even if that meant breaking your own rules.’

For a second or two he could feel the heat of the devil’s anger, fire licking at the sleeves of his coat. He didn’t look around until it was gone and the park was back with the every day sounds of birds singing and children crying and men and women talking into cell phones.

‘Yes,’ Lucifer admitted, although that one word was ground out from a closed throat and through clenched teeth. ‘This one is my responsibility and now it’s your responsibility, Ezekiel, because that's your job. That's what I'm paying you for.'

'Does this job come with a life insurance and health care package?'

It was strange, the things that could wind up the Epitome of Evil, the King of Hell.

'This isn't a joke.’ And Zeke could have sworn he heard a faint hiss at the end of ‘this’. ‘It isn't some idiot mortal playing god. This one is for real, a practitioner of old magic. This isn't tarot cards and scented candles. This one. Is. Dangerous.'

One moment Ezekiel was staring into the burning embers of hell. The next, he was looking over the park, alone, kids playing football in the distance. He let out the breath he hadn’t meant to hold. Maybe if Lucifer actually helped instead of flying off into a rage at the smallest thing, they would rid the earth of this dangerous threat just that little bit faster. 

The smell of Chinese food caught his senses, and he decided he was hungry.

*

Kanundra lifted the knife from his victim, leaving him slumped across the kitchen work surface as blood pooled beneath him. 

'You will worship,' he murmured, a smile in his voice. It shocked him how loose the morals of this time were, yet at the same time it pleased him now little they seemed to care about their own survival. 

Still, despite choosing men and women whose lives seemed, to him, to be vile and pointless, he wasn’t sure where his victims - his sacrifices - were going; to Heaven or Hell. He’d been honoured to find himself standing before the Devil so many centuries before, having lived his life with that goal in mind. After worshipping Him for most of his life, in death he had hoped to be worshipped in return. But it hadn’t been that way. Satan, the once beloved angel of heaven, fallen from that glory to become the ruler of the fiery pit, had toyed with him, offering nothing but an eternity of torment as reward for a life's servitude. Until Ashur had helped so many escape, the He had allowed him to go free too.

He resumed his work in earnest; sending the rotten and the rotting to Hell to take his place as the jokers in Satan's court, souls for Him to take his pleasure from in any form he wished.

*

Zeke fell back hard onto the bug-ridden mattress, flinching involuntarily as the bed's rusted springs gave under his weight. What he wouldn't do for a pay raise. He thought about it, and realised to his faint disgust that there was very little he wouldn’t do for a pay raise.

He'd asked nicely of course, that was easy, but attempting to appeal to the Devil's generous side was as about as useless as trying to get ice cream in hell. 

Opening his eyes, he found himself staring up at an ornately scribed verse written in black ink on the artex above him. 

     'for great indeed      
His name, and high was his degree in Heav'n;  
     His count'nance, as the Morning Starr that guides  
     The starrie flock, allur'd them,'

Ezekiel read the partial stanza through a couple of times. It wasn't like Lucifer to write, usually he just dropped in to chat. But if not his erstwhile boss, then who else would be writing poetry on his ceiling? He could almost hear the words spoken in that oh so familiar voice that always put him in mind of lemons dipped in honey.

The afternoon sun was low enough that the last rays of the day were seeping in through the grimy window of his cheap apartment between the iron bars of the fire escape outside. 

He didn’t feel like spending the night skulking alone in this fleapit. He had the urge to feel human, mortal and alive. Just for a couple of hours. He’d only had the Chinese meal, there was some change left for beer.

Swinging his feet off the bed, grabbing his coat, he headed out again, stopping at the front desk and waiting while Max . The verse on the ceiling could wait, although he doubted Max would look kindly on the defacing of the property. 

*

Something woke him just after dawn, and he could have sworn he wasn’t alone. But when he opened his eyes there was no one - nothing - watching him. The beer last night had settled uncomfortably in his mostly empty stomach, he hadn’t eaten since the Chinese yesterday, but far from feeling sick, he had a craving for pancakes. 

Leaving the diner with a full stomach and a caffeine high from the exceptionally strong espresso, he noticed a bookstore on the other side of the road, its single window blocked with battered paperbacks. PushIng open the black wooden door with its grubby sign declaring the shop Open.

The obvious suspects for the writing on his ceiling were his boss or one of the demons he was supposed to be hunting. He was leaning towards it being the Devil, given that it was the type of thing he was prone to doing. When the old man behind the splintered counter asked if he could help, Ezekiel requested a copy of John Milton's 'Paradise Lost.'

He left the tiny shop with the book in a brown paper bag, feeling somewhat like a dirty old man coming out of a sex shop. Then again he thought he might prefer people to believe it was porn he was carrying rather than poetry. 

Back in his room, Ezekiel sat on the bed and leaned back, looking up, re-reading the lines sketched there. Dropping the brown paper bag to the threadbare carpet, he opened the secondhand copy of Milton that he’d purchased and stared in surprise at the inscription inside the front cover.

     'Whose wanton passions in the sacred Porch     Ezekiel saw'

He smiled wanly. He was clearly far too predictable. He had done just what was expected of him, exactly what had been anticipated. 

Four hours later, having read the poem end to end, and the notes that the book's previous owner had scrawled in the margins and between the lines, Ezekiel was no closer to knowing why the Devil or a demon would leave that particular message for him. He had discovered the verse within the poem, and the lines in the front of the book, and had made a mental note of what the pencil scribbles read at that section.

     'Morning Starr = Lucifer (light-bringer) the name of Satan before his fall from Heaven;      name in heaven changed to Satan = enemy.'

Zeke rubbed his eyes. He needed a break, and the study of Milton at his most prolific wasn't getting him any closer to finding this dangerous Satanist. He dumped the book on the rumpled sheets and closed his eyes. Yet something made him reach back for the volume and slide it into his coat pocket when he headed out for pizza in the park.

*

The sunset kissed the horizon before sinking seductively lower. Ezekiel munched his way through a slice of crispy dough with a topping of garlic & mushrooms. He lay sprawled on his front in the grass, supported by his elbows, trying not to drop tomato sauce on to the pages of the book. With each line he read, his mind kept going back to the case he was supposed to be working on, and what the nice coroner had told him. 

The two old men had died of natural causes. But there had also been unusual signs of extreme stress around both their hearts. As if, perhaps, the heart attacks had been induced somehow. It would have happened without the extra pressure, but maybe later, rather than sooner.

The Devil had been trying to tell him something earlier on in the day, but his manner had been so erratic, so explosive, it had been difficult to get a hold on exactly what. It occurred to Ezekiel that he wasn't the only one with a past, but why would the Devil point him to a passage that gave away more about His Evilness than about the demon he was hunting?

'I didn't.'

Zeke congratulated himself on not even flinching. He was learning to eliminate surprise from his outward reactions. The Devil’s presence wasn’t unusual, but his tone, his whole demeanour was as he lay beside him, mirroring his position, picking at the grass. He didn't look at Zeke, even when he couldn’t have missed the intense curiosity.  
'Then who?'

‘His name is Kanundra.'

Ezekiel waited. He closed the book and put it on the grass between them. Sometime later, he asked, ‘Why did he write it?’

Lucifer picked up the book and opened the cover to read the inscription. 'He's baiting you. He wants you to go to him.’

'He must know what I'll do.'

'He believes he can beat you. Can beat us both.'

Who is he?'

'We all have our crosses to bare, Ezekiel, even me.'

Leaving a pause, in case anything more was forthcoming (which it wasn't), Zeke murmured, 'You do want him returned, don't you?'

'Yes.' Lucifer finally looked up. 'He was a high priest in one of the first of my churches. I thought it a novel idea at the time. I even turned up at a couple of his rituals. He was deadly serious in his praise of me. He scarified virgins to me, carried out despicable acts in my name. One night, I slipped into his dreams, took form and I sodomized him.' Zeke wasn't sure if he was more disgusted or strangely surprised. 'I wanted to see what he’d do.'

'What did he do?' His voice was harder than he would have liked, but the Devil did not seem to notice.

'He worshipped me more enthusiastically than before. He grew more obsessed. When he died he of course came to me, and he did so with pride. He expected to stay at my side. As I’d used his body when he was alive, he expected me to in death.' Lucifer caught Zeke's knowing grimace. 'I'd had my fun. He was dead and could do nothing more for me. So I sent him deep into hell and did not see him again.'

'Until you released him.'

'Yes. It was quite literally pandemonium. I didn't realise who he was until he was gone.'

Silence settled between them. Zeke wanted to ask how any damned souls could trick the Devil into allowing them their freedom. But he didn't. It wasn't important now. This one was out here somewhere, killing people. Zeke was sure that the two men were only the beginning. It sounded like there had been many more victims in the past, it stood to reason there would be more in the future. 

'Any idea why two old men? If he used to kill virgins....'

Lucifer pursed his lips and shook his head. 'I have no idea. He's a Satanist, an occultist, a very old and knowledgeable one. And no doubt he picked up more tricks. It's the age-old problem, isn't it? Lock a group of thieves up together for long enough, and they will work out a way to steal the crown jewels. There are a very large number of likeminded souls in Hell.'

Again, the devil fell silent, returning his attention to the unfortunate blades of grass in front of him. Zeke lifted his head and gazed down at the runes visible on his arms where he had pushed his shirt-sleeves up. 'Which one is he?'

The devil glanced at him and for a moment Zeke thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then Lucifer sat up. ‘He's on your left shoulder.' With a gentle hand he pulled Zeke's loose shirt collar back, revealing the curve of his shoulder. Tenderly, he ran a single, teasing finger over the rune tattooed on Ezekiel's skin.

Zeke felt a sudden and overwhelming passion ignite within himself. He shivered, his eyes closing for a moment as an involuntary gasp escaped him. He knew the Devil was smiling without having to look. 

'Sorry.' 

The apology surprised Ezekiel more than his reaction to the Devil’s touch. He looked over his shoulder, staring while Lucifer hesitated with his hand hovering above Ezekiel’s skin. For a moment as brief as time he held breath he didn't need and wanted more. Then Lucifer lay back on the grass and the spell, whatever, was broken.  
Despite being unsure if he really wanted to know, Zeke asked anyway, 'What was that?'

'The runes are scribed in my blood - such as it is. You just felt the residual connection.' Zeke pulled his shirt closer around him, missing the heat of the touch even when he’d only felt it for a moment. He didn’t want to argue that it had been something more than residual. 

'He’s dangerous,’ Lucifer warned him, unnecessarily. ‘Please be careful.'

Before Ezekiel had time to respond, he was gone.

*

It was a hot, sticky night, but Ezekiel barely felt it. He lay over the covers as the long hours ticked by. There had been no word from Kanundra since the two old men except for the lines on his ceiling, and however many times he read them they didn’t make sense. The cops had closed the case, putting the two deaths down to natural causes because it was simpler that way. Witchcraft, the occult, wasn’t one of the NYPD's strengths.

He didn’t know how to find this soul. The Devil had said that he was being baited, but how did six lines of old verse lead him anywhere? Something made him sit up, turn on the light and pick up the battered copy of Milton from the bedside table. He started to read again from the start. 

As dawn approached, Zeke dressed quickly and left his apartment.

*

Standing in the park, close to where he had lain the evening before, Ezekiel watched the sunlight peel the dark from the trees until he was no longer alone.

From somewhere behind him, a low dark voice started to speak. ’Has he told you of his past, his pain? Has he revealed to you that which he hides, that which will consume him for all eternity?'

Zeke turned his head a fraction to look at the tall, cloaked figure that approached him. 'Kanundra.'

A smile lit the ancient face. 'So he told you about me! That pleases me greatly. I was important to him once, as you are now.'

Ezekiel allowed himself the ghost of a smile. 'I'm just doing a job.'

'Of course.' 

Kanundra came around to stand a few feet in front of Ezekiel and slowly he lowered the hood of his cape. The tall man's shadow fell over him, blocking out the sun. His head was smooth, his brilliant jade eyes were set deep into his skull and his thin lips were curved into a smile. 'That which he rules is not all that he desires, nor deserves. He merely questioned. Curiosity, individuality, the ability to think for yourself... these things were not allowed in the hallowed kingdom.'

'If you're trying to convince me that the Devil deserves our sympathy, you're wasting your time. All I'm concerned with is returning you all to where you belong.'

'And you truly believe that the master of lies will not deceive you when the final soul is caught?'

Ezekiel didn’t want to answer that; he didn’t want to think about it. This was his only chance. When the time came... he could only hope Lucifer would have enough pride to hold up his side of the bargain. After all, the contract went both ways. 

Kanundra turned to watch the new dawn. 'Morning Star, such a beautiful name, isn’t it? All his names mean 'bringer of light'. Ironic, isn't it, that all he has ever received is darkness and hatred?'

'If you adore him so much, why did you leave? Why didn't you stay in Hell, remain close to him?'

'Because he did not understand or appreciate the depth of my love for him. Only here on Earth can I show him how deeply I worship him. Only here can I kill for him, shed the blood of the innocent and the pure in his name. Only up here will he take me again.'

Zeke felt a chill race down his spine. What was that phrase? Like someone walking over his grave. 'Has he... taken you while you've been back?'

'Alas, no.' He sounded so disappointed, so sad, but Ezekiel was relieved even if he didn’t know why the idea bothered him. When Kanundra turned to him, the expression on his features made Ezekiel step back immediately, his hands going to the deep pockets of his coat, reaching for the two loaded guns. He was allowing himself to be distracted, a potential huge mistake.

‘Well, he has had other things on his mind. The breakout, for one.’

Zeke lifted out his weapons, held the guns at arm's length and aimed directly at the eyes of the occultist who stood before him. 

Perhaps he should have been more concerned with the lack of fear his quarry was showing. Perhaps it should have been a clue that he stood his ground, his arms folded in the creases of his flowing robes, smiling, his eyes sparkling. 

'Is it the same for us both? If I take your eyes, will you return to Hell to be replaced with another? Or will he save you, bring you back?’

Honestly, Ezekiel had no idea. A year ago, more, he would have said he’d be replaced and left to rot in Hell. Now though… he wasn’t so sure. Besides, he had never found it in his best interests to talk to the demons before exorcising them right back to their rightful place. There was only one truth for him, nothing was going to change that. His fingers tightened on the triggers. 

Kanundra spoke three words in an ancient dialect and instantly Zeke felt the guns pull away from him. He was so surprised that he didn’t react in time and before he knew what was happening, he was the one in the firing line, his own weapons turned on him. He shook his head.

'That won't change anything. He’ll just send someone else after you.’

‘It’s the very least I can do.’

Ezekiel heard the scream before he realised he was the one making the sound. He felt pain, white-hot, dancing along every nerve, scorching his skin, tearing his muscles, pulling his bones apart. His lungs burned, his brain boiled. He felt as if he was being torn inside out, his insides being pulled out through the empty ocular sockets in his skull. He screamed although his throat was raw, and carried on screaming.

Suddenly there was something other than the pain. A hand like iron was clamped to his head, over the places where his eyes once were, somehow holding back the inevitable flood of his soul down to hell. Something was pressed against his back, a body of sorts, hotter than he was, hard yet somehow flowing around him. He felt as if flesh from the hand over his face was running into his head, and the feeling was making him want to vomit. Instinct made him raise his own hands to his face, or at least what was left of them, thank Christ he couldn’t see that, but they were caught in a vice grip and forced down, away from his face. Hot breath caressed his ear.

'Don't fight me. I can keep you here but you have to let me.' 

Lucifer. Unmistakable, even if his voice was lower, rougher, and his accent was something very, very old. 

Zeke tried to relax, but it was difficult when his body was trying to tear itself apart. 

‘I have to take you down, collect the pieces of your soul and repair your human form. You'll know you're not on earth. But don't be tempted; when your eyes heal, keep them closed. It won't be for long.' Zeke nodded as best he could, trembling, not in any hurry for the hand to leave his face or the Devil to let him go. 'Are you ready?'   
He couldn’t speak, so he jerked his head in what felt like a nod.

He thought he heard Lucifer say, ’I won't let you fall,’ but he could easily have been imagining it.

A second later the warmth of the park, the heat of Los Angeles, was replaced by the intense furnace of Hell. Zeke was dimly aware of the form behind him shifting, changing, as the madness in his head slowly, slowly, started to ease. Lucifer’s iron grip on him didn’t loosen as reason returned to his mind. As the cacophony of agony and fire dissipated, he realised that the hand on his face was no longer human; the fingers elongated, the nails sharp. The creature against his back was taut, lithe, angular; the wiry arms wrapped around him had too many elbows. 

His eyes growing back was more painful than having them shot out. His vision returned, albeit behind Lucifer’s hand, and the light leaked through the fingers, through the lids, white and hot. The buzzing in his ears retreated, letting him hear in the distant screams of the multitude still trapped down there. As soon as he felt whole again, it took all his effort not to fight the hold the Devil had on him. And he must have felt it, because the words, ‘hold on,’ were put directly into Ezekiel’s head; reassurance, comfort and something else, something deeper, something intimate. Mentally he clung to the words, to the shape and sound and feel of them. A flare of arousal chased away the remnants of pain and the shock of it forced him to fill his lungs with air -

\- smoky, polluted, Los Angeles air. Abruptly, Ezekiel realised he was back in his apartment. Opening his eyes somewhat apprehensively, he saw the peeling wallpaper and the damp on the ceiling and wanted to kiss the spiders in the corner of the window. He was alone. Outside, the sun was up. He could hear shouts; insults and greetings, some one in the same. Putting his hands on the windowsill, he fought open the window and breathed in the sights and sounds and smells of humanity until exhaustion washed over him and he dropped back onto the hideous, beautiful mattress. He was awake only long enough to realise that the verse had gone from the ceiling, then he was asleep. 

*

When he next opened his eyes, it was dark and he was no longer alone. Lucifer had straddled a chair, folded his arms across the flimsy back and rested his chin on his hand. He looked oddly comfortable and Zeke wondered how long he’d been there. 'Hey.'

Ezekiel blinked against the light. 'Hey yourself. What are you doing here?'

'Protecting my investment?’ He sounded like he wanted to make light of his answer but changed his mind. ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right.'

Zeke rubbed his eyes and sat up. 'Yeah, I think. Thank you.’ He made sure Lucifer knew he was serious before pointing upwards. 'The verse has gone.'

'Of course. He has no further use for it.'

'Does he know what you did?'

'I doubt he expects that returning you to hell is a permanent solution to his problem.'

The answer worried him. 'Is there a permanent solution... to me?'

Lucifer hesitated, then shook his head. 'No. Not while your soul belongs to me.'

That didn’t exactly reassure him. Zeke swung his legs off the bed. 'Any pointers you can to give in this instance would be greatly appreciated.' He stepped into the cold bathroom and pushed the door to. He didn't have to eat or drink, but he did, so he needed to pee.

‘You could try shooting first and asking questions later.’

'I'm trying to make friends,' Zeke called out from behind the door. 'I might have to face them again one day.' He could imagine the Devil's eyebrows raising. 

'Doubting me, Ezekiel?'

Flushing, washing, Zeke stepped back into the bedroom. 'Should I?'

'We made a deal, I will keep my word if you do.’

For once, Lucifer looked and sounded sincere. He looked into the Devil’s eyes and without warning he remembered a single detail about his sojourn down to Hell; ‘hold on’ …. the intimate words, the flare of arousal. Suddenly the apartment was far too small for the both of them.

Grabbing up his battered coat, Zeke headed for the door. He caught the expression of surprise, maybe bewilderment, perhaps even hurt on the Devil's face. Sometimes it was like having a petulant child following him everywhere. He got to the door and held it open. ‘Are you coming?’

It was almost worth it for the smile on Lucifer’s face.

*

'The same diner, Ezekiel? Why not live a little? There has to be a thousand of these places in LA.’

Zeke ignored him, pushing open the door and resisting the temptation to let it slam back in the Devil’s face. Not that it would. 

He ordered pancakes and coffee, drank an entire mug of the strong, dark brew while he waited for his food. Lucifer unscrewed all the lids on the sugar shakers and syrup bottles. Zeke watched him with a detached amusement. 

‘Did it cost you to save me yesterday?’

He didn’t know why he’d asked, he’d never meant to give any of his inner questions voice, let alone that one. But somehow it slipped out.

Lucifer put down the last of the sugar shakers, took the seat next to Zeke’s and turned it so they were face to face. He said nothing verbally, but his eyes… Ezekiel found himself looking, staring, falling into the dark, drowning in the black….

He saw the cost then, the cost of each and every wayward, damned soul. The toll taken on Lucifer himself; an eternity of pain beyond human comprehension, of being stripped of everything he ever was, everything he ever loved.

The waitress put Zeke’s plate down on the counter in front of him, jarring him back to the present. When he glanced back, the Devil was gone.

*

It was pure coincidence that Zeke stumbled over Kanundra’s latest crime scene at all. After leaving the diner he walked the streets of downtown LA, although the Devil might have referred to it as wandering aimlessly. He tried to process what had happened yesterday and this morning, then stopped trying. If there was sense to be made of it all, he supposed, he would make sense of it eventually.

He was heading back to the apartment when he saw five marked police cars, and several unmarked ones, all try to stop on the same piece of sidewalk. He started towards the scene, attempting to reach out with senses he’d been trying to hone, trying to feel the demons when they were close.

Maybe it worked, or maybe it was just that sixth human sense, but he knew he was being watched. The hairs on his arms stood up, he felt a prickling on the back of his neck, and he changed direction, walking back the way he’d come, towards the park, unconsciously leading him to the place they’d faced off this morning.

Hands - guns - at the ready, Zeke fired the moment he could focus on the wayward demon. Kanundra side stepped the shots as if they were baseballs, and with a wave of his fingers the bullets dropped harmlessly to the ground, energy taken from them. 

'They have found my next sacrifice,' he told Ezekiel proudly, presumably referring to the heavy police presence two streets away. 

Ezekiel kept his eyes on the man in front of him. Outwardly calm, his mind was reeling. How the hell was he meant to send this soul back to Hell if he could stop bullets? 

'You cannot harm me. I'm not like the others. I used my time in captivity wisely. No one can touch me, certainly not the Devil's lapdog.'

'Then what? We’re at a stalemate. I can’t let you go on killing innocent people and you can’t kill me.’

'I can. I did. How many times would he save you? How important are you to him?' 

Kanundra stepped forward. Instinct made Ezekiel back away but he was inhumanly fast, and the next thing he knew, the demon’s hand was on his shoulder, heavy as iron, pushing him to his knees as he ground the shoulder joint between impossibly strong fingers. Ezekiel didn’t want to give him the pleasure of a scream but he let out a shout of pain, tried to break his grip but couldn’t.

‘I can crush you, break you, tear you limb from limb.’ 

Under the pressure, Zeke’s shoulder popped out of its socket, igniting a fire of pain across his chest. This time he couldn’t keep the scream to himself.

'Stop.'

Through the haze of pain, Ezekiel saw Lucifer standing beside them, his human form wavering, his true form slowly taking shape. Zeke glanced back at his tormentor and saw real fear pass across his sharp features. 

'I shall rid myself of the both of you!' Yet Kanundra's voice wavered.

The Devil laughed, a sound very far from the note of sarcasm Zeke was used to. It was deeper bellow of amusement and rage. It surrounded them, a barrier separating them from the mortal world. 

'You will return to Hell.' 

Kanundra screamed and Zeke turned away, aware of the pressure building around them, of the shaking and cracking of the earth. He tasted sulphur and ash, closing his eyes against the sudden, blinding light tearing up through the savage wounds in the ground below them. He felt the moment Kanundra’s vessel broke in half, saw the flash of white behind his sealed eyelids, heard his tortured scream. 

For a moment it seemed to be over. Zeke cautiously opened his eyes, saw the Devil as he was used to seeing him; looking as alive as the kids behind him playing. Then the sky turned black, a storm split the day in half and a bolt of lightening forked down to earth to surround Lucifer in a cage of light. Energy wracked the human form, twisting it, cracking it, breaking it. Zeke couldn’t hear his screams but he could see the mouth open, throat constricted, eyes molten in their sockets.

He screamed himself, ran forward but the charge around Lucifer threw him backwards and he landed hard on the grass.

There was nothing he could do against the white-hot, brutal justice being meted down from on high, God punishing his once favourite son. After eons of abandonment and banishment, even Zeke thought he’d been punished enough.

He tipped back his head and yelled up to the stormy sky, ’STOP IT!’

It stopped. One moment he was staring up at raging clouds, the next he was looking at a blue, cloudless sky. He scrambled to his knees, but there was no sign of the Devil, in human form or otherwise.

*

'Bourbon, double, no ice.'

The barman poured a generous double shot and Ezekiel downed the drink in one. 'Again.'

The barman obliged. 'Tough day?'

He swallowed the strong liquid and nodded. 'You could say that.' He wished the alcohol had more of an effect. 'Got anything stronger?'

'How much do you have?'

Zeke laughed as he dug the remaining change out of his pocket. 'Twenty seven dollars... and ninety-six cents.' He placed it all onto the bar. His host seemed to hesitate, but Zeke supposed he looked pathetic and just desperate enough to be taken pity on. The barman vanished for a moment and when he returned he was carrying a glass bottle with no label. The liquid inside was yellowish and cloudy. 'Sure about this?'

He nodded. ‘Definitely.' 

When the cork was pulled he smelt lemons and chilli. It should have been enough to dissuade him from this ridiculous course of action, but he pulled the glass towards him when the barman half-filled it and drank it down in one swig. It tasted vile the moment it hit his tongue, but the aftertaste wasn’t bad, more citrus than sharp. He smiled, a lopsided expression, and set the glass back down on the bar. The barman laughed, re-filled it and left the bottle when he went to serve another customer.

After a couple of glasses, Zeke felt lightheaded. He hadn’t been drunk in over 15 years. He wasn’t sure he could ever drink enough now to get so intoxicated he’d be able to forget the events of the last twenty four hours the way he very much wanted to. His mind’s grip on the searing memories was clingy, desperate, almost hysterical. 

He didn’t know where Lucifer was. He was certain the Devil couldn’t be killed - ended - because if he ceased to exist, who would preside over Hell? Yet he knew what he’d seen out there in the park, after he’d taken it upon himself to do Ezekiel’s job and banish Kanundra’s soul back to the pit.

The repercussions, God’s retribution, was difficult to misinterpret. Lucifer must have known what the consequences would be if he interfered. It made sense that he wasn’t allowed to reclaim the wayward souls himself, otherwise what would be the point of employing Ezekiel? So why had he done it? There was only one answer that Zeke could come up with, and it wasn’t logical, it wasn’t sensible, it wasn’t remotely possible. But it was the only one. He had to have done it to save Ezekiel’s life, such as it was. Zeke just couldn’t work out why he’d bother.

*

It must have been around half three, four in the morning when Zeke finally stumbled into his apartment, because dawn was already peering over the horizon, as if checking it was safe to come up. 

Zeke missed his floor three times in the elevator and ended up taking the stairs. Then there had been the problem of getting his key in the lock. He’d finished off the entire bottle of whatever it was that the barman had given him. He’d promised the guy tomorrow’s allowance, given him a slurred but solemn promise that he’d return to pay the remainder of his tab. He knew he hadn’t been believed, but he’d prove him wrong. He’d go back, presuming he could find the place again. Presuming he didn’t have a head like a car crash and could deal with the day light burning out his retinas. Because that was the kind of man - demon - he was; good and honest, except for the cold bloodied murder. But that was a long time ago.

Zeke hit the bed ass-first and groaned as the movement wrenched his spine and sparks spiked behind his eyes. He made a conscious decision to welcome the hangover, to greet it like he would a long lost friend. 

For a few minutes he lay on the mattress, feet on the floor, still in his shoes. He thought maybe he’d sleep and wake around lunchtime feeling like shit and actively wishing for death. But instead, the feeling of rabid intoxication simply slipped away, leaving him feeling… the same way he always felt. 

‘Damn.’

It was better that way. God alone knew what he’d been drinking all night. Were he still alive, it might actually have killed him.

He wasn’t even sleepy any longer.

With a heartfelt sigh, he sat up, kicked off his shoes and shrugged off his coat, and slouched over to put on some coffee, wondering if he could find an old black and white horror movie on the television. 

Something moved against the far window, which he saw was open, and he was reaching for his gun before he realised it was Lucifer, sitting on the ledge, one leg dangling outside, the other pulled up, arms wrapped around it, chin rested on his knee. 

‘Hey.’

When there was no response, Zeke cautiously approached. The dirty light from the street reflected off black pupils focused somewhere else, somewhere very fucking far away. He wasn’t sure if he dared disturb him, was certainly relieved - for once - to see him, and in the end he perched himself at the other end of the ledge where he waited.

The first rays of sun danced over the long, angular face, resting in the jet black hair, turning it gold. It wasn’t a surprise to Ezekiel that this human form that one, or both, of them had chosen was striking in its own way; the Devil was never going to appear as anything less than perfect unless it suited him to do so. But even still, he’d never been able to work out the strange affection he’d felt for it from so early on. He’d tried to recall who the sharp features had reminded him of, but the only person he’d come up with was Trevor Butcher, from the forth grade; a skinny kid he and his friends used to kick about and steal lunch money from. He wondered if the similarity was coincidental, if his memory was playing tricks, or if which ever of them had come up with the look had done so deliberately. Or in his case, unconsciously.

As the sun rose, the darkness in Lucifer’s eyes receded, chased away by the warm light, and very slowly he seemed to come back in to himself. Eventually he turned to look at Zeke and smiled. But still he said nothing. After the longest time, Ezekiel reached across the yawning distance between them and touched tentative fingertips to that black hair. He stayed like that until Lucifer turned his face into his touch, eyes closing, neither of them even breathing.

Very, very slowly, Zeke moved across the window ledge, closing the gap. Eyes opening, Lucifer let his right foot drop to the floor to give him space, and when he tilted his head, the Devil met him in the lightest of kisses. He didn’t know what he was doing or what he was thinking. He tried to stop thinking completely.

Unexpectedly, it was Lucifer who pulled back. He didn’t go far, and Zeke didn’t miss the way his gaze lingered on his mouth, but he eventually dropped his head back to the damp wall behind him. Ezekiel sat up but didn’t shift away.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course.’ But it was nothing like his usual snark.

‘Of course.’ He repeated the word in the same flat tone. ‘Where did you go?’

‘Home.’

‘To heal.’ The Devil’s eyes dropped away from his for a moment. Zeke couldn’t remember him every backing down from a challenge before, even a gentle one. Once again reaching into the space between them, Ezekiel took Lucifer’s hand in his and turned it over, brushing his fingertips across his palm. He felt the shiver as if it was his own.

‘What are you doing, Ezekiel?’ He asked quietly, as if unsure he wanted the answer.

‘We’ve had one hell of a day, so to speak. I figured you, I, could do with some human contact.’

‘Given that neither of us are human…’ It was hardly a ‘no’. 

‘How about you try not talking, just for a while?’ He didn’t wait for an answer, shifted closer and left less than an inch between their mouths, an inch Lucifer closed to kiss him. It was harder this time, a prelude to more. Some tiny part of his brain tried to make him see reason, but he silenced it, sliding his fingers through the jet black hair while with his other hand he felt his way down to the front of Lucifer’s black shirt and slipped the buttons one by one. 

The first he knew of the Devil’s hands on him was the sudden flare of desire that ran across his nerves at the scrape of fingernails over the runes tattooed into his skin. He didn’t have an obvious retort and if he did his melting brain probably wouldn’t have been able to use it. So he fell back on the old favourites, sliding his hand over the bulge in Lucifer’s soft, expensive pants. The hot mouth left his, lips sealing on his throat, teeth biting but achingly gentle, something he didn’t need to be.

By way of giving permission, Zeke pushed the high thread count cotton from Lucifer’s shoulder and bit down hard on his collar bone. He was surprised by the tremor it sent through the body that was suddenly trying to press closer, T-shirt torn in the Devil’s hurry to get them skin to skin which sent every rational thought scattering from Zeke’s head. Thank fuck he didn’t have a demon’s name on his cock otherwise it would have been enough for Lucifer to wrap his fingers around it and he would have come like a freight train.

Unzipping, unbuttoning, Zeke raked his fingernails over the Devil’s silky steel erection, murmuring, ‘show off’ against his throat. Its length and girth would have put any porn star to shame. 

‘You would if you could,’ came the instant retort. Zeke’s amusement was silenced by a snake-long tongue pushing into his mouth. The thought of it sliding into him elsewhere almost sent him over the edge, and wasn’t even his own thought. Turnabout was fair play; he imagined sliding into Lucifer, raw and rough, knowing the Devil would see it. Lucifer shuddered, sent back, ‘in your wildest dreams’, and slid his hand down Zeke’s cock, stroking perfectly manicured nails over his testicles. 

It was messy and dirty but his orgasm turned what remained of his brain to mush and he was barely aware of Lucifer’s climax burning his hand. 

When he was able to see again and was certain his legs wouldn’t give way, he stumbled to the bathroom and cleaned up. Naturally the Devil was usual pristinely presented self when he returned, although something in the illusion was off, something in his eyes…. He was on his feet, between Zeke and the bed, arms at his sides.

‘Hate to love you and leave you….’ 

Zeke wasn’t about to make more of it than the Devil. He smiled, crossed the room, deliberately brushed the back of his hand against the back of Lucifer’s fingers as he passed. ‘See you around.’

‘You can count on it.’

He chuckled to himself, and when he looked back, he was alone. He’d expected nothing else. Throwing himself on to the mattress he looked up at the ceiling and was surprised to see more words written there.

‘Is the blues the moment you realise you exist in a stacked deck?

Does this create a hurt that whispers? Or makes the wrong man’s kisses a healing.’

Committing them to memory, he made a mental note to ask Max to look the lines up on the internet. They were written by Satan after all, so he needed to read between the lines.


End file.
